Inglourious Basterds is a 2009 World War II action/adventure film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. The project was formerly known as Inglorious Bastards. It is the 6th feature film by Tarantino.

QT has stated that Basterds could be described as a "Spaghetti Western set in France during World War II".

New York Magazine on the Inglourious Basterds screenplay: "It reads like Kill Bill meets The Dirty Dozen meets Cinema Paradiso."

Censorship: So far, marketing for the film has been adapted to national laws and sensibilities in some countries by changing occurances of swastikas on posters and other promotional material to a bullet hole, for example in Germany, where the display of national socialist symbols is illegal in many circumstances, or considered delicate.

Ratings: FSK16 (Germany), tba (USA), IIb (Hong Kong)

History

Inglourious Basterds is Quentin Tarantino's latest big project. Talked about for years, the director finally announced the completion of the script in the summer of 2008 and after a deal was struck between The Weinstein Company and Universal Pictures, the movie went into production that same fall on location in Germany (with a few days of shooting in France). Long believed to be a remake of the 1977 Italian war movie Quel Maledetto Treno Blindato aka Inglorious Bastards by Enzo Castellari, the project turned out to be 100% Tarantino cinephilia. An exciting story set during WW2, but it is not a movie "about WW2" (Brad Pitt). It is partly a homage to the 1977 film (eg. the title similarity) and various other American and Italian "men on a mission" World War II movies like The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare, The Dirty Dozen and Five For Hell. It is also heavily influenced by French New Wave cinema, Spaghetti Westerns and pre-war German cinema.

Official synopsis

Inglourious Basterds begins in German-occupied France, where Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent) witnesses the execution of her family at the hand of Nazi Colonel Hans Landa (Christoph Waltz). Shosanna narrowly escapes and flees to Paris, where she forges a new identity as the owner and operator of a cinema.

Elsewhere in Europe, Lieutenant Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) organizes a group of Jewish soldiers to engage in targeted acts of retribution. Known to their enemy as "The Basterds," Raine's squad joins German actress and undercover agent Bridget Von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger) on a mission to take down the leaders of The Third Reich. Fates converge under a cinema marquee, where Shosanna is poised to carry out a revenge plan of her own...